More Kudos....questions will follow!

[Jamie Straw]

Five valiant members of OPCAAW arrived in force at our house today to take care of a very old, very neglected apple tree that fell down Monday night. A sight to behold as they put their heads together on the safest way to tackle such a huge and slightly precarious mess of a tree. Then the chainsaws started buzzing, assisted by Jim's pole saw for the tall suckers. At the end there were lots of bowl and platter candidates, everyone took what they wanted and there's still lots left (I'll be asking how to cut them up!). Some will be dropped into our fundraising auctions as the months go by. Thanks to Jim, John, George, Troy and Pam!! Sometime next year, perhaps they'll post some pictures of their projects.

 

[Dean Center]

Looks like a great score. Apple splits very quickly, so bag it in plastic bags or split lengthwise through the pith as soon as it hits the ground. Or as soon as possible, in this case. Then you get to decide how you're going to use individual pieces. Whether you're going to 'turn-dry-turn' bowls or boxes, or whether you'll make hollow forms while it's still wet. Spindle blanks get wax emulsion on the ends to slow speed of water loss through end grain while the moisture leaks slowly out the sides. Fun decisions.

 

[Raul McCai]

I took a huge ancient apple a few years ago. The pith is cruel and demanding it will split any boards or log parts to which it remains attached.
Apple is pretty wood and enormously useful for the oddest of things like journals and bearings and wheels, makes greet walking sticks and batons and marshal arts weapons.
Turnings too
That's a nice haul

 

[robo hippy]

My current personal wood bowl is apple, about 6 years old. Nice warm brown color. If the apple is still good and solid, it has kind of a yeasty type smell to it. If it is starting to rot, and most apple trees out here in the North Wet have hollow centers, then it smells kind of sour. Little to no risk of any of it splitting at this time of year. I leave things whole till it is time to turn into bowls. I do try to have it all cut up by about June, which is when our dry season is pretty much in full gear....

robo hippy

 

[Jamie Straw]

Being in the North Wet helps!

My current personal wood bowl is apple, about 6 years old. Nice warm brown color. If the apple is still good and solid, it has kind of a yeasty type smell to it. If it is starting to rot, and most apple trees out here in the North Wet have hollow centers, then it smells kind of sour. Little to no risk of any of it splitting at this time of year. I leave things whole till it is time to turn into bowls. I do try to have it all cut up by about June, which is when our dry season is pretty much in full gear....

robo hippy

The "North Wet" eh?🙄 I'll take a couple more pictures today. The center of the middle sub-trunk spit out loads of what was basically compost. I'll have to pick and choose what to seal immediately, as I only have about 1.5 quarts of Anchorseal in the cupboard. Based on your experience, I might toss the bowl stock in my outdoor wood bin and take care of any spindle stock first. Your dry season starts a tad earlier than ours, but I'm really looking forward to June! Cousin wants me to go down (Bend) after April. When I go, I'll try to stop by your place.😎

 

[Bill Boehme]

Dry Season?

Speaking of dry season, here in the drouthwest, our dry season usually begins in April and goes through March. When does your dry season end?

 

[Charlie Knighton]

Bill, two/three weeks ago I thought yall were under water from that system from the south?????????????

 

[robo hippy]

Our 'Rain Year' starts in October. So rain from October to March or April, showers through May, then June through September pretty dry. For the calendar year, we are about 16 or so inches behind normal, which is about 50 inches a year. Not as dry as California, but the seasonal ponds have no water in them, and rivers are running at September levels. There will be a lot of trees coming down next summer.... Madrone harvested in February or March has far less cracking than Madrone taken in the summer or fall.

Jamie, Looking forward to having you visit.

robo hippy

 

[Jamie Straw]

Our 'Rain Year' starts in October. So rain from October to March or April, showers through May, then June through September pretty dry. For the calendar year, we are about 16 or so inches behind normal, which is about 50 inches a year. Not as dry as California, but the seasonal ponds have no water in them, and rivers are running at September levels. There will be a lot of trees coming down next summer.... Madrone harvested in February or March has far less cracking than Madrone taken in the summer or fall.

Jamie, Looking forward to having you visit.

robo hippy

Bummer! We've been getting rain for awhile now, especially the last week or two, reservoirs are recovering and snow is falling. I doubt, though, that it will be a totally normal rainfall or snowfall through the winter. El Nino's supposed to send more rain south than "normal." Are you turning apple ow because you're out of Madrone, or just for variety's sake?

 

[Jamie Straw]

Slide-show coming; weather report

Speaking of dry season, here in the drouthwest, our dry season usually begins in April and goes through March. When does your dry season end?

If we're lucky, July and August are mostly dry. (Bainbridge Island, 9 miles west of Seattle smack dab in Puget Sound) September can be really nice sometimes. Usually start getting rain in October, but mildish temps. This past summer was quite hot (for us) and stretched on either side of the normal dry, warm weeks. I was so glad I wasn't training horses, toooooo hot.

On topic: I took some more close-up pictures of the apple that's left, along with a 2-foot rule. Will set up a slide-show so y'all can tell me which ones are the best. I want to keep some, donate some, and give some to the people who've helped me out!

 

[Jamie Straw]

What do ya think?

Click here for a slide show of the "gnarly" stuff [if these take too long to download, LMK, and I'll resize]. Most of these are from where the pith (and then some) had rotted out, but since they're generally 2' across, there's still good wood there. Rumor amongst the Destructo Team was that some of these will be good auction items. If you have any comments about a specific chunk, you could refer to the number at the top of the slideshow. These are, at my novice stage, beyond my imagination! It'll be next year before any finished product shows up at a meeting. A teaser from the slide show, and a picture of my little bowl blanks are below. Thank you Troy for cutting them up!

 

[Gretch Flo]

Jamie-looks like tiger stripes thruout the sap/heart wood. Great find!!!!. Apple (reg or crab) tends to split for me maybe 1/3 of the time. I used danish oil and needs several coats. My orthopedic surgeon gave me some crab apple, and they were already split in the heart wood. Alot of fuss to get turquoise powder and epoxy in the largest crack, but it was a crotch and lots of striping in one corner and rich heartwood-just finished it. Gretch

 

[robo hippy]

Jamie,
In the bottom picture, the piece in the upper left corner had a black ring about 4 or 5 inch diameter just off the pith. Please be very careful with that one. It could be ring shake or ring check where there is a crack or weak spot all the way around that ring, so if you attach anything to that, it may come loose. That type of color ring also may hold to turning and then crack off in a year or two. Have some friends check it out. The piece in bottom center row looks similar.

robo hippy

 

[Bill Boehme]

In addition to what Reed said, I was also concerned about the one in the upper left because the pith wasn't removed and that might lead to splitting if ring shake doesn't get it first. The piece in the lower right also looks like it contains the pith. I'm not familiar with turning fruit wood other than plum and Bradford pear. Bradford pear is fairly well behaved other than having really weak crotches that can appear solid, but in reality is just two separate pieces in really close proximity looking for an opportunity to separate. I think that plum starts splitting before the tree hits the ground. Plum has been a good opportunity for me to practice crack filling techniques. I've tried most of the following: epoxy, CA, Inlace, coffee grounds, key filings, bath tub caulk, roofing tar, ....... 🙄

 

[Charlie Knighton]

Plum has been a good opportunity for me to practice crack filling techniques. I've tried most of the following: epoxy, CA, Inlace, coffee grounds, key filings, bath tub caulk, roofing tar, .......

plum is one of the most desireable woods I have ever turned.......whatever you got to do Bill to turn it is good......I spent a week trying to get rid of some ants in some plum.....the pith had rotted and the ants took the opportunity to colonize.......little black ants

 

[Jamie Straw]

In addition to what Reed said, I was also concerned about the one in the upper left because the pith wasn't removed and that might lead to splitting if ring shake doesn't get it first. The piece in the lower right also looks like it contains the pith. I'm not familiar with turning fruit wood other than plum and Bradford pear. Bradford pear is fairly well behaved other than having really weak crotches that can appear solid, but in reality is just two separate pieces in really close proximity looking for an opportunity to separate. I think that plum starts splitting before the tree hits the ground. Plum has been a good opportunity for me to practice crack filling techniques. I've tried most of the following: epoxy, CA, Inlace, coffee grounds, key filings, bath tub caulk, roofing tar, ....... 🙄

Reed and Bill, I'll check those out closer tomorrow (though they already have Anchorseal on them, so .... ?) At any rate, I can probably make an extra cut with the bandsaw and take the pith out -- this apple cuts very easily! I doubt that I'll get to turn them right away, but I think I have another Mentor session coming up, so who knows. Need to get help with wine glass bases first.😱

Reed: Thanks for the additional heads-up that such a spot might hold up to turning, but turn ugly down the road!

 

[Bill Boehme]

plum is one of the most desireable woods I have ever turned.......whatever you got to do Bill to turn it is good......I spent a week trying to get rid of some ants in some plum.....the pith had rotted and the ants took the opportunity to colonize.......little black ants

Yes, plum is wonderful and everybody and everything likes it. It has incredible color and figure. I hate that Ihad to throw some of it away because I neglected to take proper care of it and left it outdoors in the summer sun.

 

[Gretch Flo]

ring shakes

Some ring shakes don't go all the way around, and often not perpendicular to the wall, and glues well.
The first 2 pics are from my firewood. and decided to photo to see what what a ring shake will do. First pic is the cut end of the log. Second pic is after the whole ring fell out after splitting. The 3rd picture is a honey locust where I was going to turn a large bowl. (These pics are 2 years later) I quit after spending 2 hours on the outside when I started the inside and saw the ring shake on inside (photo 3) was going to meet on the outside (photo 4) and was going to go more than half way around and a huge piece would have flown out. I didn't want to get killed. I have kept this piece in the basement and am amazed to see other cracks come and go and others stay. ( ring shake is prone in my hands from several sources of honey locust, carpathian walnut and others). Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. 😱 Gretch

 

[Bill Boehme]

... I have kept this piece in the basement and am amazed to see other cracks come and go and others stay...

A crack might close up as the wood moves while drying, but it is still there. Once wood cracks, it is cracked for good or until somebody glues it back together, but it is not possible for the wood to heal itself. We have had some big name turners teach classes at our club and I have heard more than one of them say that misting green wood while turning a hollow form or a bowl will cause small cracks to close. In one sense they are right because being vigilant about watching for cracks and keeping the wood wet will hopefully prevent the cracks from propagating into dangerous cracks. The problem is that I haven't heard any of those demonstrators fully explain this. As a result, the implication that some of the students took away from this lesson is that a crack that closes up has healed itself ... out of sight, out of mind. Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

[robo hippy]

I had some sugar maple once, very rare out here. On a log section, about 14 inch diameter, there was a brown ring in about 1 1/2 inches from the outside. It followed one growth ring. I saved an end cut slab and dried it. as it dried, about 1/3 of it split away. It was solid enough to turn. I carry that piece with me when I do bowl turning demos...

robo hippy

 

[Gretch Flo]

A crack might close up as the wood moves while drying, but it is still there. Once wood cracks, it is cracked for good or until somebody glues it back together, but it is not possible for the wood to heal itself. We have had some big name turners teach classes at our club and I have heard more than one of them say that misting green wood while turning a hollow form or a bowl will cause small cracks to close. In one sense they are right because being vigilant about watching for cracks and keeping the wood wet will hopefully prevent the cracks from propagating into dangerous cracks. The problem is that I haven't heard any of those demonstrators fully explain this. As a result, the implication that some of the students took away from this lesson is that a crack that closes up has healed itself ... out of sight, out of mind. Nothing could be further from the truth.

On the other hand this same wood sitting in the basement for 2+ years had cracks that haven't returned, surprisingly near the rim. I will admit that that there were so many cracks that I may not remember the exact crack. I also suspicion that the suggestion of gluing a crack when it first appears may keep a gap (albeit filled) , rather than gluing when it closes more when dry. Just a thought, Gretch

 

[robo hippy]

The only way I have heard of, but never tried, for getting cracks to close up was to soak the wood in a mix of about 1/2 water, and 1/2 titebond. Water and glue are supposed to penetrate, wood swells, glue holds it together. It is 'supposed' to hold up.

robo hippy

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

The only way I have heard of, but never tried, for getting cracks to close up was to soak the wood in a mix of about 1/2 water, and 1/2 titebond. Water and glue are supposed to penetrate, wood swells, glue holds it together. It is 'supposed' to hold up.

robo hippy

I think this is the idea. The glue will "help" hold the crack together and as long as there is not a catastrophic change in the atmospheric conditions the crack will not "likely" reappear. Of coarse the best way to keep this from happening is to keep the humidity where the wood is displayed at optimum levels ,oh and also the temperature at stable levels.